ULSTER'S MILK WAR

Evening Star, Issue 20983, 23 December 1931, Page 2

ULSTER'S MILK WAR

CANS EMPTIED ON ROAD It must be just like old times in Ulster. There is a war on in Belfast, and the engagements are complete with midnight raids and fights with the enough casus belli, too. All the trouble arose because the retail milk sellers in Belfast refused to pay Is 4d a gallon to the producers, this being the winter price the latter demand instead of the Is summer price. Sporadic warfare has been going on, which has developed during the last week. , The supply of about 30,000 homes is in the hands of the Belfast Co-opera-tion Society, and it announced last Saturday that it had made arrangements with farmers to. supply its customers. The society was too optimistic. It did not get its supplies. It issued a circular to its customers: “ The majority of our suppliers aj-e quite willing to meet their obligations to us, but are so terrorised by organised pickets that they fear to leave their mi!’: cans in the usual place for collection. Some of them, however, have braved this terrorism and given ,us their milk as usual.” News is now available of what was done in the way’ of terrorism. Roads leading into the city were blocked by trees. In some cases the police were able to remove the obstruction in time for vehicles to finish their journey, but in most instances the drivers had to return home.

That wasn’t the worst. Two parties of pickets on motor cars ran round emptying cans-of milk which had been placed on the roadside to be collected by the retailers’ motors from Belfast. But in the Ballymena district of County Antrim a police patrol came upon a number of pickets destroying milk, and after a lively scene six arrests were made. In the same district two motor lorries, each with a constable on guard, were returning to the city after collecting 500 gallons of milk. The lorries were held up by seven young men, who intimated their intention of removing the cans and,destroying the contents. The constables drew their batons, and a fierce scrimmage followed. During the struggle it is alleged that one of the raiders produced a hatchet, but was deprived of it after a desperate struggle. Finally the seven were put to flight, and the lorries proceeded to the city. In their determination to prevent milk being supplied to the town some pickets slipped into byres and milked the cows before the farmers had a chance. But one farmer bested the pickets and w.ent for them, landing them hefty blows with a milking stool, rakes, and anything handy. The police now declare they have things in hand. They are preventing the waste of milk, and when last news came through, according to the plans made by the Farmers’ Union all the public institutions in the city received their usual supplies again, while the places where the Belfast . Corporation welfare schemes are carried out also got the customary quantity.